In response to my last post, Tom writes
I don’t know anything about “The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives”. I did work in a worker owned collective in Seattle. It was part of a federation of sorts. Our company was a organic produce wholesaler, we were associated with a worker owned organic granary, a bakery and a restaurant. In total there were probably 80 to a 100 workers all cooperating and managing their own businesses. This was in the 70′s when the organic and whole foods movement was mostly coops and few health food stores.
Over time some of these businesses morphed into more regular enterprises but most shut down. It was a great experience, learning to reach consensus was sometimes painful but it was a necessary requirement of this type of organization. I recommend everyone try it. I believe decision making needs to be decentralized and as close to the stakeholders as possible.
Which raises an important question, namely whether cooperatives are a sustainable business model in general. A few points to be made here:
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Non-cooperative businesses also have a pretty high rate of failure, about 44% in the first four years. Businesses, whatever their organizational form, will only succeed if they try in spite of potential failure. Nonetheless, I’d like to see some statistics on the failure/conversion rate of worker cooperatives…I wonder if anyone is doing this research. I need to look into cooperative economics.
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There is a large number of potential ways to organize cooperative businesses, and to my knowledge, not much in the way of documentation as to successful methods, etc. Again, something that should be researched if it isn’t already. This links back to the previous point also, because accumulated knowledge of successful organizational methods can only be produced through trial and error. For example, Tom mentions his experience with consensus decision-making in a cooperative context and the difficulties associated with it. Maybe for certain businesses or in certain circumstances consensus is a good method, whereas for others more traditional democratic methods would be better…need more information here.
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I can’t speak much about other countries, but in the US, non-cooperative enterprise, specifically corporate enterprise, has massive legal support and is incentivized through the tax code, whereas cooperatives (specifically producer cooperatives) have basically no legal or political support. On top of that, our culture is one that celebrates private industry and looks suspiciously on cooperative enterprise, except in left-leaning pockets (although research as to actual public opinion is lacking here, this is just an assumption). A major goal of socialist political activity should be aimed at winning legal, political, and popular support for cooperative enterprise that would allow it to become competitive with private industry (and in the long run, should also aim for the de-incentivization and repeal of legal support for corporations).
Anyone have any info on cooperative economics or related research into cooperative business models? Experiences? Thoughts?
Don’t know if it’s of any interest, but the biggest co-operatively owned enterprise in the world is the Co-operative Group in the UK, that own and run a variety of businesses, principally the Co-operative supermarket chain and the Co-operative Bank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Group
Thanks Pete. I’ve been going on mostly about producer cooperatives, but consumer cooperatives are also a point of interest, and The Co-operative Group is definitely worth engaging. While cooperatives of both types are little more than curiosities in the current business landscape, a genuine shift in that landscape and in the mode of production would also require a shift in the form of exchange, and I think consumer coops provide some very interesting models for such a shift.